Straw poll: how are your sales doing?

September 26, 2007 11:07 AM

Mail order entrepreneurs: How have your sales figures been over the past few months?

I'm looking mostly for tidbits from established sellers who do daily mail order merchandise sales via the Internet and have an excellent feel for weekly trends. Are you doing better than 6 months or a year ago? Any relevant info on what you sell and insight on your customers would be great.

Please no replies from brick & mortar stores or large companies -- too many variables at work there.

As far as myself, I publish low volumes of books and software and have noticed an anomalous drop in sales during the past 4-5 weeks. I figured I'd post this partly out of curiosity and also to get a feel for whether it's specific to my own business or applicable to everyone.

posted by rolypolyman to work & money (5 comments total)

Do you sell via a web site? Check to see if your google ranking has dropped for some reason.
posted by crickets at 11:20 AM on September 26, 2007

I have a small cross stitch shop online and my business is growing like crazy. I attribute it mostly to the brick&mortar shops going out of business because of high overhead. I've been paying more attention to my Adwords account lately, so that's probably part of it too.
posted by moosedogtoo at 11:44 AM on September 26, 2007

Business for two clients, one who sells customized jeans via mail order and one who sells expensive high-end handmade furniture via mail order/shipping, are both in the dumpster right now. This trend's been ongoing for the past four or five months.

They're both blaming the downturn from the housing market. Both visibly scoff at any news that the economy is doing OK in any way shape or form.
posted by SpecialK at 2:01 PM on September 26, 2007

I believe I see a distinct seasonal variation in ebay prices. I believe from now to Christmas is peak season.. So, the fact that you want to compare two adjacent quarters is very odd to me. Typically, one would compare August 2007 with August 2006.

The only markets I can think of that peak in August are some tourist destinations and back to school, but you know your business better than I do..
posted by Chuckles at 5:20 PM on September 26, 2007

We are a niche business that sells only Hitachi Magic Wands and attachments for them.

Peak seasons for us are Christmas & Valentines Day (mostly men buying for their appreciative wives/girlfriends) and the start of school year (mostly women, enjoying their alone time while the kids are off at school).

One change that we've seen in recent months is that sales to Canada have picked up, probably due to the changes in exchange rate.
posted by MagicWandShop at 5:50 AM on September 27, 2007